Had more science database woes at the end of the day yesterday - processes (including splitters) getting logjammed. I'm hoping a couple "update stats" commands will fix all that.

Speaking of splitters, I'm actually running (drumroll please) the first software radar blanked data through a splitter right now, and workunits will be distributed to the public fairly soon. This is still in test phase - we shall see if the software blanking performs better than (or worse, or the same as) the hardware blanking. I'm guess with a couple tweaks here and there my code will be far better.

- Matt-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Assuming the software blanking works well, would you keep both the hardware and software blanking in the process? I would think a good hardware solution would be ideal, but I will hold my breath for the actual results of your (not so) little test.

Assuming the software blanking works well, would you keep both the hardware and software blanking in the process? I would think a good hardware solution would be ideal, but I will hold my breath for the actual results of your (not so) little test.

I would guess that the software solution will pick up contamination that is seen as RFI that may well be below the trigger threshold for the hardware RADAR detector.

My second part of a guess is that the hardware blanker will work fine for direct hits and strong reflections, but may well not be sensitive enough for the weaker reflections and multipath effects that s@h will still see. Note that we're looking all the way down for the weakest of the weak signals.

Meanwhile, I'm still a little concerned for how the blanking is done and whether the inserted noise that replaces the RADAR signal will itself introduce artefacts. Some of the Lunatics are looking at modifying the client so that contaminated sections of WUs are completely skipped instead...

Keep searchin',
MartinSee new freedom: Mageia5
See & try out for yourself: Linux Voice
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

The introduction of artifacts have been discussed before, I think I recall. I wonder what the rebuttal was.

On the face of it, I agree with ML1's concern. Taking a swag at encapsulating it, the choice is between blanking the wu and analyzing the data in pieces with a new or altered client, or introducing artificial noise in the blank periods and using the existing client. The added noise must tend to push the detectability of an ET signal down, since (presumably!) ET doesn't exist in the added noise. However, analyzing shorter periods of time (between the RF blanks) also reduces the detectability because the contiguous data runs are shorter. I'm sure the details aren't as simple as I describe here, but I hope that I have the dilemma correct.

Was there a third option considered, such as taking longer time slices? If ET is not in the nuisance RF band, the RF contribution could be rejected via the FFT filtering. Perhaps the RF is too broadbanded? Could we take finer time steps to get around that?

Would wavelet analysis be less sensitive to the RF noise than the standard FFT analysis approach? That was suggested a long time ago, but I never saw a thoughtful response.

Off topic: was the blanker tested out using the beta folks? or isn't this the process for introducing new things like this.

The introduction of artifacts have been discussed before, I think I recall. I wonder what the rebuttal was.

On the face of it, I agree with ML1's concern. Taking a swag at encapsulating it, the choice is between blanking the wu and analyzing the data in pieces with a new or altered client, or introducing artificial noise in the blank periods and using the existing client. The added noise must tend to push the detectability of an ET signal down, since (presumably!) ET doesn't exist in the added noise. However, analyzing shorter periods of time (between the RF blanks) also reduces the detectability because the contiguous data runs are shorter. I'm sure the details aren't as simple as I describe here, but I hope that I have the dilemma correct.

Was there a third option considered, such as taking longer time slices? If ET is not in the nuisance RF band, the RF contribution could be rejected via the FFT filtering. Perhaps the RF is too broadbanded? Could we take finer time steps to get around that?

Would wavelet analysis be less sensitive to the RF noise than the standard FFT analysis approach? That was suggested a long time ago, but I never saw a thoughtful response.

Off topic: was the blanker tested out using the beta folks? or isn't this the process for introducing new things like this.

I believe you've already been answered elsewhere. Good questions but I'll expect that I'll be giving you the same or similar answers...

Note that the RADAR contaminated part of the WU is completely replaced by artificial pseudo-random noise, so in effect you're chopping up the WU into smaller pieces for the real data that remains. The main difference between that and the Lunatic method is that the Lunatics can avoid a lot of processing of artificially inserted sections of noise to instead literally just 'intelligently' skip them. Either way, you lose data for where the RADAR has obliterated what might have been there.

However, a big positive is that you avoid contaminating the results with lots of junk detections. You also avoid that WU blindly erroring out on the client with a "-9" for the excessive junk load result. Hence, you get a better chance for finding real signals either side of the blasts of RADAR.

Working out the FFT filtering (to detect the RADAR contamination) is what Matt has been working on for some time with the splitters...

And regarding "Would wavelet analysis..."... That has been answered by Eric and others a few times over in that using FFTs are much more suited to the sort of analysis that we are doing here.

Now... If you can put together a wavelets client that offers some good benefits over the existing client, then you will get the chance to put your name on a science paper and get the sort of WOW factor that is so far reserved only for Alex Khan!

Good questions!

Keep searchin',
MartinSee new freedom: Mageia5
See & try out for yourself: Linux Voice
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Now, that would be really something if you could do that reliably... Filter to retrieve only the RADAR signal(s) and then exactly subtract those signals from the WU data to produce a 'clean' WU.

However, I suspect that it is very much easier and far more reliable to do the blanking...

I would also suspect that an upgrade to the RF shielding of the ALFA housing and connections would give a better result in the first place. Are any of the other experiments that use ALFA affected by the RADAR contamination? Might they be fixing the problem for us at source?

Keep searchin',
MartinSee new freedom: Mageia5
See & try out for yourself: Linux Voice
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Now, that would be really something if you could do that reliably... Filter to retrieve only the RADAR signal(s) and then exactly subtract those signals from the WU data to produce a 'clean' WU.

However, I suspect that it is very much easier and far more reliable to do the blanking...

Now the normal way of doing that is to get the originator to transmit on two separate frequencies, with the signal applied to each transmitter in anti-phase. That way the two receivers receive the wanted signal in anti-phase and the unwanted local interference in-phase. Feed the output of each receiver into a longtail pair combiner and the interference cancels itself out.

Now, that would be really something if you could do that reliably... Filter to retrieve only the RADAR signal(s) and then exactly subtract those signals from the WU data to produce a 'clean' WU.

However, I suspect that it is very much easier and far more reliable to do the blanking...

Now the normal way of doing that is to get the originator to transmit on two separate frequencies, with the signal applied to each transmitter in anti-phase. That way the two receivers receive the wanted signal in anti-phase and the unwanted local interference in-phase. Feed the output of each receiver into a longtail pair combiner and the interference cancels itself out.

Now if we could just contact ET .....

Nice idea but rather complicated by frequency dependant dispersion and phase shifts over the vast distance of space...

I still think the improved shielding at Arecibo and/or switching off the RADARs in the first place would be much more reliable!

Keep searchin',
MartinSee new freedom: Mageia5
See & try out for yourself: Linux Voice
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Speaking of splitters, I'm actually running (drumroll please) the first software radar blanked data through a splitter right now, and workunits will be distributed to the public fairly soon. This is still in test phase - we shall see if the software blanking performs better than (or worse, or the same as) the hardware blanking. I'm guess with a couple tweaks here and there my code will be far better.